


Swordplay

by nightram



Series: Brienne Lavellan [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, slow burning relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 20:31:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4072969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightram/pseuds/nightram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Lavellan has chosen the path of the Knight-Enchanter, which brings new skills to be learnt. Having been confident in her form, she gladly accepts the Commander's offer to further hone her swordsmanship although she learns quickly she is no where near as proficient as she likes to think. Commander Cullen takes it upon himself to teacher her to properly wield a sword, lest she be rolled over in the field for too wide a swing. (Might have more chapters? I have no idea.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swordplay

With her staff in hand, Lavellan pulls her coat tighter and begins her short trek across Skyhold’s drawbridge. With the coming of spring, the snowstorms had eased and gale force winds calmed to a whisper through the peaks. It was still cold walking the bare bridge, but it could’ve been worse.

She glances over her shoulder before returning to her path, her heels clacking along the metal structure. Her destination was the training rings just beyond the holds giant walls. Lavellan pats at her gaudy leather coat, searching for the familiar form of her Knight-Enchanter’s blade. She had been practising with it recently, following Commander Helaine’s drills when Cullen had caught her. 

A trained swordsman himself, he had offered to teach her some of what he knew. To be honest, he was nervous watching her wide arcs and careless turns and wanted to give himself some peace of mind. It didn’t hurt that it was an opportunity for Cullen to spend time with the Inquisitor.

The gravel crunches under her boots when Lavellan passes the bridge’s lip. From where she is standing, the road slopes down around the bend and East towards the camps. There lives the Redcliffe mages along with the Templars the Inquisition have gathered along the way. Things were not peaceful between the two factions, but meetings were often held under the Inquisition’s coercion and were proving fruitful.

Wandering off the main road, Lavellan follows a more narrow path towards the thin forest. At the lip of its line, she finds the training rings and a wooden shack serving as the troops armoury. The Commander stands with his arms folded leaning onto the ring’s wooden beams. He rubs his hand across his face before turning to watch the soldiers marching along Skyhold’s battlements in the not so far off distance.

“Commander Cullen.”

The warrior glances over his shoulder and steps back, reaching for his familiar pomel to leisurely rest his hand on. He swings around to face Lavellan as she approaches, a faint smile on his tired face. His withdrawals plaguing him with headaches today, he was hopeful that this distraction may keep the symptoms at bay for at least a short while.

“Inquisitor.” He waits patiently as Lavellan trudges through the thin snow to meet him beside the ring. “Has the morning treated you well, my lady?”

Inquisitor Lavellan shrugs simply and exchanges a smile. “I met with Josephine to practise my manners for when we brave Halamshiral.” She glances over her shoulder at Skyhold. “I hope I’m not keeping you from your duties.”

Cullen shakes his head. “There’s nothing that demands my immediate attention,” he lies. This is an opportunity to shunt his paperwork for something less mundane and not feel quite so guilty about it. “Shall we get started?”

“Yes please,” Lavellan grins excitedly. She was always eager to learn new skills, and after finding herself armed with only a sword in her encounter with Corypheus at Haven, she thought it a necessary lesson. “Where do we begin, Commander?”

The warrior chuckles and bows his head, reaching for his belt to loosen his sheath. Pulling the weapon from his hip he props it against the wooden fence and retrieves the two blunted training swords beside it.

“Leave your staff and hilt. We will begin with these,” he offers her a blade from his gloved hand.

Placing her familiar weapons aside, Lavellan takes the sword with wide eyes. She allows herself a moment to feel it’s weight in her palm and rotates it in her grip. She swings it limply to get a feel for it’s movement before looking back to her trainer.

Putting a leg up over the fence, Cullen turns to her. “I’d like to see how well you engage.” 

With a thud he lands on the other side in the wet dirt and gravel, his sword in hand, and saunters to the centre of the ring. Lavellan places her hand on the wood and hops over almost gracefully. She is careful not to trip on the slick earth when she lands, and joins him.

Without hesitation, the Commander leaps forward with a swing with Lavellan hurries to block. He steps forward with another cut and spins on his heel to sweep at her from the side. She instinctively reaches to grip the end of the blade like she would her staff, but catches herself and holds the metal out to protect herself while stepping back.

Lunging forward, Cullen aims for her arm which she dodges with finesse but stumbles to avoid his next parry. She finds herself pacing further back to gain some distance and finding no windows to earn some ground.

The warrior takes a few steps back and gestures for her to come closer. “See if you can get me, Inquisitor.” He was teasing her.

Swallowing loudly, Lavellan sucks in a deep breath and strides forwards, reaching out with a jab. Cullen steps aside, and deflects her next cut with ease. She tries again to swipe at him from the other side, and again, then arcing down at his legs. With the loud clangs, he deflects each blow and launches a counter, pushing her back.

When she lifts her blade to block his next parry, Cullen artfully twists his sword and flicks it from her white-knuckled grip with a smirk. The weapon falls to the ground with a defeated thud at his feet.

The mage balks for a moment, astonished at how poorly she fared. “You’re good,” she breathes.

The Commander scoops up the training sword and wipes the muddied blade on his thigh. He hasn’t even broken a sweat and is sure to look smug when he returns the sword to the Inquisitor. “It _is_ my profession,” he simpers.

“I don’t understand how Bull does it with both his hands tied to his axe,” Lavellan confesses, catching her breath.

“It takes either a very brave, or a very dumb man to fight without a shield,” Cullen chuckles, stabbing his sword into the ground with enough force it stays upright. He crosses his arms against his chest and levels the Inquisitor under his caramel gaze. “You’re too wide, you leave gaps where you are open to an attack,” he states with years of confidence, “and you block like you’re using your staff.”

The Commander scratches his stubbled jaw and considers where the begin, looking to his boots for some kind of advice. Lavellan waits quietly, the fingers of her free hand drumming a rhythm on her cocked hip.

Cullen hums thoughtfully. “How good is your balance if we were to tie your hand behind your back?”

“I’m not sure,” she feigns a frown, “but if I topple over, you’re not allowed to laugh.”

“I’ll make no promises, Inquisitor,” he chuckles and retreats to the fence. Kneeling down, he seizes his usual sword from the opposite side and pulls it’s belt free.

Lavellan watches him approach and moves her arm behind her. “Will you just link it through my belt loop?” A brief memory of Bull explaining his passion for knot tying dances through her mind.

“No, I won't do that to you, Your Worship. Give me your hand.” She does as instructed, and he turns her palm upwards. Pulling the belt tight, he measures approximately halfway and twists the old leather around her hand before looping the tail through the buckle and pulling it tight. She tries to clench her fist, but the layers have made it too bulky for her fingers to grip anything -- effectively rendering it useless.

“This is quite clever of you,” Lavellan chortles, “very ingenuitive, Commander. And to think Dorian believes you lack imagination."

Cullen allows a short dry laugh and crosses his arms across his broad plated chest. “And how long have you been trusting others’ opinions for you?” He plucks his training sword from the mud with a smirk, and finds his headache and tense muscles waning. He flicks the mud from his blade with a forceful swing.

“That’s very presumptuous of you, Cullen,” the elf teases with a pucker of her cheek. “I never said I agreed with him.”

Once more the Commander jumps the offensive jolting the Inquisitor into action. "But I don't recall you exactly refuting his opinion," he chuckles before swinging his blade once more.

"You wound me, Commander," Lavellan retorts faintly with her concentration focused on not being hit. He laughs warmly and continues to drive her back.

The Inquisitor finds that all she can do is block what she sees coming and little else. Fighting as a mage taught her to always avoid such close quartered combat and to be honest she found his bulk in motion to be somewhat intimidating. What's worse is he was taking it easy on her, and she still struggled to keep up while not a single bead of sweat formed on his brow. Her legs felt tangled and her feet uneasy on the soft earth.

When her back kisses the fence, she realises she is no where near as proficient with a blade, spectral or not, as she had smugly assumed. And this was Cullen's way of telling her so.

Their clatter comes to a halt when the warrior drives one last swing, the elf blocking diligently. The Commander exerts pressure onto the hold and forces her to fight back with all her strength.

Lavellan's arms were muscular for her agile build thanks to years of dancing a staff up and above her head in various acrobatics as she fought. Her time with the Inquisition adding to her strength through exponentially more time on the field. She enjoyed it.

Cullen is surprised but her resistance, but hides it well and pushes harder, towering over her gritted teeth. She appears almost ferocious.

With a strangled shout that echoes off the mountains, Lavellan shifts her angle and frees herself by redirecting the warrior's strength up. Ducking out from under him, she uses her speed to round him and try for his left shoulder, desperate not to trip in her desperation.

The Commander is quick to lift his gauntlet to catch her swing in place of his usual shield and shoves her back. The collision rings in their ears. He swivels on the heel of his shined boot and jabs at her.

Lavellan ducks once more and aims a frantic blow at his torso which, unsurprisingly, he blocks again with his blade and forces her back further. They keep this up for what feels like hours.

Dropping her sword on the ground, the Inquisitor raises her hand before doubling over, hands on her knees, to catch her breath. She heaves for a short while before righting herself and reaching for the bladder of water in her pack. She pops the cap and guzzles the contents, coughing when it catches in her throat.

"You're a fast learner, Inquisitor." Cullen approaches her, somewhat breathless and grabs her training sword up off the ground. He is smirking, his scar drawn up. Rolling his shoulders, he stretches his neck and feels an instant relief when the joints pop.

Lavellan swallows the contents of her mouth with a loud gulp and wipes her dripping mouth with the back of her hand. She runs her long fingers through her hair to push back the loose strands and tempts a smile.

"You're being easy on me," she says pointedly and returns her bladder to her pack. "I appreciate it."

"I can't be guilty of injuring the Inquisitor because I felt like showing off," Cullen chuckles. The deep sound washes over her like a luscious velvet sheet. A sense of embarrassment prods at her mind. "Although I do have a request, if you'd be so willing as to humour me, my lady."

Her pointed ears rise with curiosity. "Oh?"

"I'd like to see how well we fare against each other with our weapons of choice," he suggests almost shyly, struggling to maintain a confident air. He felt silly asking it of her. It wouldn’t be of much use to either of them other than to burn time away. He enjoyed spending time with her.

"No magic?" she asks with a tilt of her head, otherwise sounding eager.

"Preferably no rift opening," he grunts. "Just your staff against my sword and shield." He had just dipped into his energy stalls, and wanted to really try for an adrenaline rush. Cullen couldn't help being a bit competitive.

The Inquisitor places her hands on her hips, a wicked grin plastered across her marked face. "You're on, Commander."

The pair retreat to the rings edge and swap out their gear. Lavellan perches herself on the fence, straddling the wooden rung and relieves her left hand of the makeshift handicap. She draped the belt over the post and removes her coat and supplies belt with her little pack and water bladder to sit with with it. The elf rolls up the sleeves of her beige garb she often wore around the hold and pops the top few clasps on her collar.

Jumping back into the ring, she strokes some stray locks back and takes her staff in hand, twirling it around to remember it's comfortable feel. She’d had this stave for quite some time, she notes, and decides to pay a visit to the forgery later to upgrade her weapon before her next outing.

Retrieving his personal blade, Cullen loops the buckle back through his sheath and returns it to around his narrow hips. He briefly disappears into the troops armoury and returns with an Inquisition shield in hand -- the eye stares at her incredulously. Reaching over the fence to place it inside the training ring, the Commander pulls off his furred coat but leaves his loose vest. He tosses the garment over the pole beside the Inquisitors coat and mounts the fence.

Lavellan feels much more confident with her own staff in hand, and saunters around the worn ground with a determined thin-lipped frown.

Once Cullen arms his shield, he struts towards the centre and his shoulders dip with his swagger. His blade sings when he pulls it from its sheath and he drops into a fighting stance, beginning to circle.

Glancing down at her feet for a moment, Lavellan finds her rhythm and weight. She needed to be loose with her stave, not tight and clipped. She holds it behind her as the pair slowly pace. With a watchful gaze, she tries to determine her ticks -- having never really _seen_ him fight beyond glancing at his motions practising with soldiers, she had to learn quickly. Lavellan twirls her staff idly.

It’s the sharp intake of breath that gives the Commander away, his sword jutting out for the Inquisitor’s ankle. Using the bladed end of her stave, the elf catches his throw and pins it to the ground and pivots the other end, bringing herself forward a step to take aim at the shield strapped to his arm.

Releasing the warrior’s sword, Lavellan brings the wood down on his right arm which is quickly blocked. A fleck of wood chips off thanks to the metal. Taking his moment of opportunity while she tries to bring her weapon back around, Cullen shoves her with his shield -- careful not to throw her back too hard. 

The Inquisitor had curled her shoulder forward to take the brunt of his blow, stumbling back and digging her staff into the ground to catch her weight. She pinches her brow and releases a Mind Blast to push him back in turn.

Quick to hide behind his shield, Cullen shuffles back with the wave of energy. He blinks a few times, regaining his composure from the weak but still effectively confusing spell. He almost misses her movement when she leaps at him.

Jabbing her blade at his chest, the Inquisition shield stares at her menacingly before knocking her rhythm. She recovers herself quickly redirecting her energy by twirling her staff behind her and bringing it down on top of his armoured shoulder with a burst of electricity braided into the attack.

Hitting her back with his sword, Cullen deflects her too late and is faced with another parry. He watches her bring the wood arcing down, aiming for his ankles and leaps back. She was quick, and he was thankful for her diluted magic. He had never told her why he poorly concealed a cringe whenever she used magic in her day-to-day activities (which was rarely), but she read his cues regardless.

As the sharpened staff end comes down, the Commander traps it under his thick boot. He is too far to swing at her, so he decides to instead wait for her response.

Incredulous eyes light up and seek him out instantly, she appears almost affronted but is quick to offer a breathy chortle and smile to accompany it. “Rude!” she sings, reefing her weapon back out from under him.

“What?” He feigns ignorance with a childish shrug and a lying pout. “Surely I can’t be the first to have done that.” When she lashes out at him with another swing to shut him up, he shoves her staff off with a whack of his shield and laughs with her.

“ _May_ be,” she sneers, the pucker of her dimples giving away her poorly concealed mirth. With another spin of the rod around her wrist, she brings the end of her staff down to drape her arm up it and contorting her figure into an agile curve.

“You use a staff differently to Circle Mages,” Cullen states while gesturing to her weapon with a nod of his chin. He had be trained in ways to overpower his former-charges, both in how he carried his blade and used the talents lyrium had gifted him. “Their staves are more of an after-thought, than a part of them.”

Lavellan pulls in her lower lip and chews it thoughtfully between her glinting teeth. “You must consider that they likely aren’t allowed much freedom to really hone a method,” she shrugs unsurely, concerned of criticising the Circle’s method too obviously. If there was one thing she quickly learnt upon “joining” the Inquisition, it was that you keep your opinion on mages quiet.

“Knight-Enchanters are offered more freedom with combat, as you’d already know,” the Commander says tensely as he sheaths his sword.

“Watching Vivienne or Commander Helaine though, for all their dignity, lose a lot of that in how they lunge I think.” Lavellan gazes over Cullen’s shoulder as he approaches, her eyes wandering to the treetops. “They don’t fight like someone trained in a sword.”

“You lack that talent also,” he notes, an attempt at humour to hide his criticism. He prays she doesn’t take it the wrong way and is relieved when she looks back at him with a defeated smile.

“I realised that quickly after we set foot in this ring,” she admits with a sigh. The Commander’s shoulders relax, and he conforms to more open and conversational stance. “You have a very good way of telling people things without actually saying anything.”

“I, uh,” he clears his throat. “I’ve never been quite proficient with the tactful use of words.”

Lavellan chuckles. “You’re not as blunt as Cassandra though,” she winks. “Take the small victories where you can, Commander Rutherford.”

Cullen’s lips part into a crescent and his teeth peek through behind his playful smile. “If you insist, Your Worship.”


End file.
